My PS is *almost* chatty, and it's telling basically my life history. Although it has some "big" words in it, it's VERY readable. It scored a 53.

Out of curiosity, I also tested my most recent bioethics essay--it's talking about the ethics of using preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and in-vitro fertalization to create a second child in order to save the life of a first child with a lethal disease. It scored a 52. I'm pretty sure my bioethics paper is significantly harder to understand than the PS.

Just saying...

gasp

I thought all those little people inside my computer making decisions and giving me information were infallible.

tintin wrote:now if we could just figure out if that's good or bad.....

well that's sort of the point. no one has so this is all sort of ridiculous.

i suppose someone could go and do an analysis on every single essay from some of those 'successful law school essays' books but who the hell is gonna do that?

i call not it.

I suppose by this point I've conceded the practicality of doing a comprehensive enough study to determine the relation between one's Flesch score and one's acceptance, but I still maintain that it would be in an applicant's best interest to pay attention to the average Flesch scores that are being reported in the poll. If one's score is vastly different than the reported mean, then he or she should be certain that their essay style sufficiently warrants its deviation.

tintin wrote:now if we could just figure out if that's good or bad.....

well that's sort of the point. no one has so this is all sort of ridiculous.

i suppose someone could go and do an analysis on every single essay from some of those 'successful law school essays' books but who the hell is gonna do that?

i call not it.

I suppose by this point I've conceded the practicality of doing a comprehensive enough study to determine the relation between one's Flesch score and one's acceptance, but I still maintain that it would be in an applicant's best interest to pay attention to the average Flesch scores that are being reported in the poll. If one's score is vastly different than the reported mean, then he or she should be certain that their essay style sufficiently warrants its deviation.

yeah but that's besides the point since you have no data to indicate that deviating from the mean would be a bad thing.

For the record you probably want readability levels no higher than tenth grade level and no lower then 8th. Once you get into the high levels it is more likely that your ps is verbose nonsense then good writing.

Kant wrote:For the record you probably want readability levels no higher than tenth grade level and no lower then 8th. Once you get into the high levels it is more likely that your ps is verbose nonsense then good writing.

Kant wrote:For the record you probably want readability levels no higher than tenth grade level and no lower then 8th. Once you get into the high levels it is more likely that your ps is verbose nonsense then good writing.

Just because you don't have the capacity to write coherently above a tenth grade level doesn't mean that other, more intelligent people, can't either.

likeaspark wrote:Does anyone else have a PS with a score lower than 30? I'd be interested in swapping personal statements to get a feel for another that has a similar level of readability. This all may or may not be meaningless, but it is certainly interesting...

I have a critical essay (literary/ rhetorical analysis) with a 30/12. I could post an excerpt if you're interested.